


Better Dreams and Plenty

by stitchy



Series: R+E+E [1]
Category: IT (1990), IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Crack Treated Seriously, Falling In Love, Film Richie, Humor, M/M, Miniseries Eddie, One Night Stands, POV Eddie Kaspbrak, The multiverse, UST, and maybe Time Travel depending on how you look at it!, intergenerational relationship, oh my god they were roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:28:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22116409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stitchy/pseuds/stitchy
Summary: Eddie stalls out on the sidewalk and pats down his pockets. “I don’t have my wallet. My prescription, either. I must’ve left it-“ Did he leave it at the Inn? That was probably the case. Along with his cash, he had Mike’s number in there, which he would have liked to call from the bar. He can find it again in the phonebook, of course, but he’d rather not have to go on some kind of wild goose chase across town.Richie rolls his eyes. “Jesus, you’re a shitty date.”-Miniseries Eddie wakes up in a strange world thirty years after his second battle with It. He’s stranded from the time and the people he knew, and he needs help. Luckily he’s not the only Loser around.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: R+E+E [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1682929
Comments: 140
Kudos: 485





	Better Dreams and Plenty

**Author's Note:**

> Idk, miniseries Eddie, film Richie [MargeHoldingPotato.jpeg] I just think they're neat!

An oak tree stands at the edge of Derry Cemetery, its roots binding together the grassy bank that slopes into the Kenduskeag Stream. In two hundred years, it had weathered the Saxby Gale and the fire that had ripped through the town at the turn of the century, along with the impudent scrabblings of dozens of treasure seekers, convinced it marked some secret cache. It did, in truth, but the tree solemnly protected anything buried beneath its shadow from being discovered. It never spoke a word of its secrets until the night of the storm, when it roared as it fell, rending the earth with its erupting roots and spilling it into the water.  
  


-  
  


Eddie’s own wet hair is plastered to his glasses when he opens his eyes, and something hard and craggy is poking into his shoulder. Rocks. Rocks and gravel, at the water’s edge. He chokes and spits a bit, then in a panic he rolls himself to his hands and knees without regard for scraping them or tearing his slacks, because his friends are still in danger.

“Richie!?” Eddie crouches carefully as he stands up, expecting to dodge a stalagmite or a stalactite, whichever one was the one that hung down in a cave- Stanley would know. But there are none. He looks up at the dark, open sky, strangely green, but certainly _outdoors_. Wind crackles through leaves and the moon casts messy streaks of light on the wet edges of everything. Storm clouds are rolling away over the cliffs of the quarry, while he stands at it’s watery bottom, bewildered and a little sore. _Oh, Toto. I’ve a feeling we’re not in Neibolt anymore._

He shouts for Bill. He shouts for Ben and Mike and Beverly and even Stanley in a moment of panic, though he knows that’s the least likely answer to his calls. Or maybe- maybe the least likely answer is the man crumpled on the shore a few yards down. He whimpers and chokes, folded in on himself and shivering. Eddie jogs closer and falls to his knees at the man’s side.

“Hey, hey hey. What happened here? What’s happening? You’re all right.” Without a care for sickness or infection, Eddie presses his hands over the other man’s, covered in blood and clutching a jacket to his belly. He’s hurt. He’s really, really hurt. Was there an accident? Maybe everything with It had gone just fine, and they were all driving away and there was an accident. Maybe, even though he is a very good driver, he _hit_ someone and they’d both been thrown clear. Eddie keeps his hands on the man’s wound but looks around quickly for headlights, or maybe a smoking wreck.

There’s nothing. No lights, no sirens. Just the wind.

Realizing the man has stopped making his tragic little noises, Eddie snaps his attention back. “I shouldn’t move you. You could have uh uh uh a broken spine, a broken neck!” But he slides his arms under him, anyway. Something makes him bold. He fully expected to die tonight, and he hasn’t yet. Maybe that means no one has to. Maybe he’s alive to save this man.

The quarry’s not far from the road that heads to the hospital. He can flag someone down, if he cuts through the tree nursery where they used to hunt for owl pellets as boys. He hoists the man into a fireman’s carry and instead of dwelling on the disconcerting dead-weight, Eddie thinks how Stanley would poke those pellets apart with a stick and explain about the kind of small prey an owl ate, and how they didn’t have bladders and could see in the dark because owls were nocturnal- except for pygmy owls. They didn’t have those ones out east, but they were crepuscular, coming out mainly at dawn and twilight. Eddie had thought that ‘crepuscule’ was a beautiful sounding word, but Richie thought it was hilarious. _A creepy, little minuscule creep! Like you, Eds!_ Stupid as it was, that had made him laugh. He didn’t mind so much if Richie liked something for a completely different reason than he did, as long as they agreed a thing was good fun and could enjoy it together.

By the time he makes it up hill, he must look like the wreck of The Hesperus. One of his suspenders keeps slipping off his shoulder under his sodden jacket and his loafers are squelching mud with every step, but someone stops for him when he makes it to the road, thank goodness. He bundles into the backseat with his ward and barely has to say anything for this stranger to understand where to take them.

“Did you get caught out in that freaky storm?” the woman asks. She keeps glancing at the rear view mirror. She’s got peroxide white hair although she couldn’t be more than twenty-two, and her eyebrows are pale to the point of near invisibility, but still they pucker together in noticeable worry.

Eddie can’t really remember a storm, or much else besides the urgency to get somewhere safe, somewhere with help and healing- but he nods until he finds some words again. “Yeah, must have. There was- there was an accident, I think.”

“I’m not surprised. There was hail! In fucking August!”

Eddie’s scalp prickles.

They screech up to the curb outside of the Emergency Room soon enough, and although his good Samaritan offers to give him a ride back to where ever he needs, Eddie waves her off. He’s not the sort to cut and run. He can’t dump this man on the reception desk any more than he could one of the Loser’s Club. That’s what trauma will do- make quick bonds. Something bad is happening, more than just their battle under Neibolt. The storm, the lapse in Eddie’s memory, whatever happened to this man that left them both half-drowned in the quarry... it hasn’t come together for him yet, but he has the gnawing, nagging feeling it will catch up with him soon.

His heart pounds like _he’s_ the dying man as he runs up to the desk within. The nurse looks up at him with wide eyes. He jumps to his feet and hits a panic button. “Sir?”

“He’s still alive,” Eddie gasps. He knows because he’s had his fingers jammed into the man’s jugular the whole car ride, and his ear practically to his chest. As close as he could manage to hunch with a middle-aged back, anyway.

Another two nurses rush over. “Mark, can you get that stretcher?”

Eddie can feel his knees sag and his head start to swim. He’s going down. Any minute, now. He blurts out what he can. “We were at the quarry, in the st-storm!”

And then, instead of the whitewash of hospital walls, he sees only black.

-

When he comes to again, he’s laid out on a gurney. He drags his arm up to check his watch, but it still says the same time it did the three times he checked it in the car. His watch is supposed to be waterproof, so the battery must have died, which is aggravating because he _just_ replaced the damned thing. No matter. He forces himself to take deep breaths despite a lingering rasp from the quarry water. In absence of ticking watch, he looks to a clock on the wall to check his own heart rate. 70 bpm. Not bad all things considered.

A nurse who must have been told to keep an eye on him comes over with a stethoscope to check him out for herself.

“Okay. Deep breath. And out. Good.” She gives him a tight, professional smile and then takes his wrist. “We couldn’t find your ID, can you tell me your name?”

“Edward- Kahhff,” he coughs. “Edward Kaspbrak.”

She narrows her eyes at him, inspecting. “Are you having trouble breathing, Mr. Kaspbrak?”

Eddie clears his throat, but for once, it’s a false alarm. “Just a little down the wrong pipe. Could I get something to drink, please?”

“Sure.” Nearby, there’s a supply cabinet over a sink, and the nurse fills a cup for him. She hands it over along with a clipboard. “Can you take a look at these intake papers for me? Then the doctor will be over to see you in a few minutes.”

Eddie thanks her and does his best to keep the forms clean as he sips and fills them out. There’s still watery blood all over his hands and staining the cuffs of his shirt. They must not have been too worried when he went down in the lobby, or else they’d have stripped and changed him into a johnny. That’s good. It must have just been garden variety shock. He doesn’t feel like he’s about to keel over, but he is hungry and a little cold, damp as he is. 

He writes down the abridged version of his medical record- the one he trots out when his mother has strong armed him into going to the doctor, rather than going of his own accord, and signs and dates the bottom.

 _Edward Kaspbrak  
_ _08-08-90_

“Eddie!” says a woman’s voice. “ _Oh, honey_.” A woman he certainly does not know, because no one, not even his mother calls him that.

But the red haired lady the voice belongs to doesn’t turn into his bay as she passes, instead she hurries past to another bed, opposite his and over one. Some other Eddie, then. What are the chances? Several people crowd along with her, though one starts to hang back as he passes. He’s gone about as white as the paper cup in Eddie’s hand. He wipes the heels of his hands at his eyes, knocking some thick, busted glasses up his forehead and then follows along, disappearing past the curtains that hang between bays. Eddie looks on, still a bit dazed.

No one comes to take his paperwork in short order, because then suddenly there’s a wild scramble of bodies as someone’s monitor codes. Technicians push away the crowd that just came in to visit Other Eddie, and there’s talk of an airlift to take him to another, better equipped hospital. This sounds crazy to Eddie, of course, because this is clearly the most state of the art hospital he has ever seen (and he knows hospitals, there were candy stripers back in the day that used to call him The Freak, not only for his lack of popularity, but for his being a ‘Frequent Flyer’). Within his eyeline, there are three huge flat screen TV’s that he would have thought only a military hospital could afford.

“How is this possible?” the woman asks one of her friends. “He’s- he’s still alive.”

One of the men- all the rest are men, Eddie realizes, thinking of Beverly and her court of admiring boys- one of the men huffs a heartbroken sigh. “I’m so sorry, man. I’m so fucking sorry we left him.”

The man with the busted glasses steps back to avoid the doctors as they move the man Eddie had rescued, _Other Eddie_ , from his gurney to a more compact stretcher suitable for a helicopter. “I left him,” he repeats, voice hollow.

“No, no. You would have stayed,” says the first man. He pats him on the shoulder, then keeps his hands there. He ignores the grayed lock of hair that flops down his forehead as he shakes the other man’s shoulders emphatically. “We _made_ you leave. It wasn’t your choice.”

“I should go with him-”

“You can’t, buddy. I’m sure he knows you would if you could.”

The man with the glasses remains just as struck and white faced as before. He can only watch as the stretcher bearing their friend leaves, held in place by the other man.

“Guys,” says a third man, stepping in. “I just got another tip from a friend down at the police. They checked out the quarry after Eddie was brought here and just found someone else.”

“What?” asks the first man, hands dropping.

“And he asked for _me_. They let the EMTs at him and then took them to the station instead of here. Must be in pretty good shape.”

The first man combs back his hair again, pulling at it and thinking. “It can’t... It can’t be him? Right? That’s crazy- he wasn’t in Derry.”

The man who had got the tip in the first place spreads his hands pragmatically. “Wouldn’t hurt to go see. It’s not like we’re gonna be able to get in the helicopter with Eddie, anyway.”

“I’m gonna-” the man with the glasses whips around, hands clamped over his mouth. He stumbles into Eddie’s bay and clutches at the sink’s edge like he’s going to hurl, but can’t seem to make anything come up. “Fucking hell.” He leans into the counter miserably, and only then catches Eddie’s eye.

“Cup?” Eddie offers, holding his out. It’s used, of course, but by the crazed, underslept look of him, this guy won’t mind.

“Thanks.” He takes it and runs the sink continually, filling the little cup three times and chugging as fast as he can. When he’s had enough he splashes his face before turning off the tap. “You guys should go ahead. I’m gonna need a minute.”

The woman comes over and kisses his hair while he slumps into the countertop again. “We understand. It might be nothing. If you’d rather go back to the hotel, that’s okay.”

“Okay.”

Though the others look like they might like to say more, they obey the woman’s warning look. “Sorry,” she grimaces at Eddie apologetically. “It’s been _a day_ , y'know?”

He nods back. Boy, does he.

“We’ll see you later. Just keep in touch,” says the woman.

The man doesn’t look up when his friends file away, and instead stretches out a shaking hand to turn on the sink again. He fills one more cup, then turns around and slides down to the floor with it. Most of it lands on the floor.

“Of course,” he sniffs. He claws under his glasses to wipe his eyes again.

“Come here often?” asks Eddie. Something about the other man’s urgently bad day makes Eddie forget about his own, makes him smile, makes him want to make _him_ smile, too.

“More often than I should,” the man admits. He frowns at the few drops still left in his cup.

“You look like you could use a real drink.”

The man huffs a bitter laugh. “That an offer?” He lifts an eyebrow and switches on a false bravado. “‘Cause usually I don’t accept drinks from strange men that frequent the emergency room. I wouldn’t want to be accused of having a type.”

Eddie bites his tongue. He meant for it to sound more like an observation than an invitation, never mind a come on. Usually it takes more back and forth for him to get a read and venture something like that. Not that he wouldn’t like to try and get to know this man better under different circumstances, mind you. He had that sort of Buddy Holly sweet goof look that Eddie somehow wasn’t immune to by years of overexposure.

He switches gears. Less comedy, more comfort. “I came in here with your friend. He- I don’t mean to pry- but they wouldn’t move him if he wasn’t stable, I think.”

The man stiffens. “You’re the one who brought him in?”

“Yeah.”

“Thank you,” the man says softly. “Just. Thank you.” He looks up at Eddie earnestly, this time not bothering to disguise his welling eyes.

“Of course.”

“He- he died. We thought. He died and I never got to...” Never _what_ , he doesn’t say. “And obviously I _can’t_ now. Cause it’s not like he’d even want that, right? And that fucking asshole _still_ might die!”

Of course, Eddie doesn’t need him to come out and say the words to know. This is the stuff entire art forms were invented to convey, when those simple words failed. The pain and hope doing battle across the man’s face are as familiar as a song. Strings and a minor key. This is love and death. “Maybe that’s why he didn’t,” Eddie offers. “So that you could.”

The man stares at him for a long moment, barely breathing. “I’ll take that drink,” he decides. He pushes himself to his feet, then glances at Eddie, still sat on his hospital bed. “Oh. Are you like, done here or whatever?”

Eddie looks down at the clipboard in his lap that no one has bothered to take from him yet. “I don’t think I got started, if I’m honest.” He needs to figure out where the Losers have got to, but he’s just as likely to run into them out of the hospital as in it. May as well cover some ground and give this poor guy a little company in the meanwhile. He gets up and tosses the paperwork on the counter. “I’m _also_ Eddie, by the way. Coincidence. Sorry.”

It’s _his_ name, he doesn’t know why he’s apologizing. Lots of people have the same name. But it must sting to hear all the same, as much as-

“I’m Richie.”

Richie, who’s still in a cave somewhere? No. They must have all got out. He’s just had a shock and it’s hard to remember. His stomach is growling like it hasn’t been fed in decades. Eddie really needs something to eat and drink before he keeps going, trying to catch up with the other Losers, anyway. That’s probably why he passed out. 

He goes to shake Richie’s hand but realizes he’s still a bloody mess. “Ah, just a minute. That’s disgusting, sorry.” He washes in the sink, but instead of being horrified by the reminder of his friend’s gruesome injury, Richie chuckles to himself as Eddie pays special attention to cleaning his nails and ring.

When he’s done Richie takes his hand daintily. “Charmed I’m sure,” he titters in a light, high voice. Then he sweeps an arm for Eddie to lead the way.

It looks like the nurses’ station is still busy with the aftermath of other storm-induced accidents. No one notices them slip past except for a man in a neck brace who can’t really turn his head to watch them go, anyway. They head out the closest exit and wrap around the outside of the building toward the Main St. side where there are a few local haunts without discussing it, so Eddie figures this Richie must be a Derry native, too.

“I grew up here, but I haven’t been back in a while,” Eddie says. He looks down the road at the changed landscape of business signs, lit up with neon in the dark. They all used to just be painted.

Richie squints at him. “Me too. I don’t remember you at Derry High, though.”

They’ve got to be about the same age, so it is a little strange they didn’t cross paths until now, but not very. “I was pretty insular,” Eddie admits. A real Rapunzle type, _his_ Richie would say. “Really only hung out with the same six or so people.”

Richie laughs. “Tell me about it. That’s the only way.” He plunges his hands in his pockets as they walk along, so Eddie does too, unconsciously.

“Aw, hell. I should have realized-“ Eddie wheezes. He doesn’t need it, he never needed it, but his fingers twitch around a phantom aspirator.

“What?”

Eddie stalls out on the sidewalk and pats down his jacket pockets as well as his pants. He tries to slow his breathing before it can have a chance to really get going. “I don’t have my wallet. My prescription, either. I must’ve left it-“ Did he leave it at the Inn? That was probably the case. Along with his cash, he had Mike’s number in there, which he would have liked to call from the bar. He can find it again in the phonebook, of course, but he’d rather not have to go on some kind of wild goose chase across town. Eddie spins around to look back. “No, not at the hospital,” he dismisses. They had to ask his name so they certainly hadn’t found his wallet.

Richie rolls his eyes. “Jesus, you’re a shitty date.”

“I guess I shouldn’t have offered.”

“I’ll spot you,” Richie says automatically, touching his arm to still him. “You saved my- _my_ Eddie. Come on, dude,” he nudges. He’s being surprisingly tactile for a stranger, but in a gentle way that a slightly shaken Eddie can’t help but welcome. “Jack’s should still be open. We can put our heads together there, make some calls. Figure out where your shit is.”

-

Inside the bar is warm and quiet. A few regulars sit with their drinks, neglecting the dartboard in favor of constantly checking their beepers. Eddie demures when he hears the grill has already been turned off for the night, but Richie sweet talks the kitchen into making him a cold sandwich. Rather than stick them on stools that Eddie is fairly sure he’d fall off of at this point, they get their drinks and take them over to a booth. Eddie peels off his jacket and hangs it on a nearby coat hook to dry off. Richie gives him a funny look as he slides into the booth across from him, mouth twisting into a smirk.

“What? Mustard on my shirt?” Eddie’s not gonna fall for that one.

Richie gives him an up and down. “Suspenders? Are you Gordon Gekko?”

“What's worth doing is worth doing for money,” Eddie quotes with a grin, raising his whiskey. It’s not particularly good stuff- that’s not the sort of joint Jack’s is- but it certainly puts hairs on his chest after the strange, stressful night he’s been having.

Richie laces his fingers together and balances his chin atop his hands. It’s inconveniently charming. “And what do you do for that money, that keeps you in suspenders, fancypants?”

“I have a limousine company.”

“Out here in the sticks?”

“New York. Some corporate, some parties, some celebrities.” Eddie thinks better of nursing his drink on an empty stomach and puts it down until his sandwich has a chance to show up.

Richie hmms at that and sits back in the booth, looking smug. “Well there’s another coincidence.”

“What, are you in transportation, too?”

“Ehhn! No.” With a showy wave of his hands, Richie frames his face like in the poster for _A Star Is Born_. “I’m a celebrity.”

Eddie squints at him. Should he know this? Is he someone Eddie ought to have seen in a magazine and recognized, and now this guy is insulted, or is he more the reclusive type like Bill? Folks rarely knew what writers looked like unless they checked the dust jacket, and even then not every book had an author portrait. On the other hand, maybe Richie is putting him on. He’s dressed in a sweatshirt that’s too small for him, broken glasses, and stained jeans, after all. What’s that grimy scene out in Seattle? 'Grunge'? Is he grunge?

“Well.” Eddie looks down at himself, still damp and spattered, tie loosened by some ER nurse. He corrects the latter. “Needless to say, there’s a dress code neither of us is meeting at the moment.”

“Dress code?” Richie’s gaze on Eddie doesn’t waver. If anything, it fixates more intently. “I’d let you drive me around in a fucking tractor and overalls. Have you _seen_ yourself?

All right, this has probably gone far enough. Eddie should shut down whatever this guy is playing at- because it’s not happening at a townie bar, not _anywhere_ , because Eddie doesn’t do that. “I don’t _see_ anyone,” he says meaningfully.

“You’re seeing me right now, I’m buying you a drink and a turkey on rye,” Richie shoots back.

“I don’t know you,” Eddie says just as quickly. “I can’t-“

“Really?” Richie leans in. “Same hometown and you’ve never seen me on Netflix or whatever?”

So, definitely an insulted, visible celebrity. It’s easier to manage this sort of situation with the front seat of a car and a sliding window in between. Eddie takes another nervous sip of his drink.

“Sorry, I must have missed that show. I’m always working during primetime.”

“You don’t _miss_ Netflix, it’s always there!” Richie laughs. “Are you the one person alive that doesn’t have it? What’s it like having that kinda free time?”

Eddie puzzles. “I’ve never heard of it.”

Richie’s eyebrows shoot up. “Okay, so either you’re from a cult or the fucking Fifties.”

“I was born in ‘47...”

Richie snorts. “I’d card you, but we already established you lost your wallet.” He throws back the rest of his drink.

That creeping feeling that all of the evening’s strange happenings would eventually converge into some sort of discovery was back. It sort of hurts to swallow. Although he had just fixed it, Eddie loosens his tie again. His scalp is prickling again and his chin trembles.

“When, uhm. When did you say you graduated?” he asks, because it would be insane to ask so many other versions of the question that bounces around his head like a ping pong ball.

Richie grins. “Class of ‘94, man!”

 _Absolutely not_ , says the most logical part of Eddie’s brain. That’s four years from now. For a forty-some-odd year old man to be that far out from school it’d have to be Twenty-something. 2015 at least. But, the part of Eddie’s brain that forgot everything important that happened to him in the first seventeen years of his life and fought a demonic clown _twice-_ that part of his brain catches the ping pong ball. Clenches around it until it pops. Something had happened to him, down there with It, and then he woke up in the quarry and now it’s supposed to be thirty years on? _It's cycle_ , he thinks. It’s all happening again. He forgot everything but this time even _worse_ , going completely under.

Eddie stands up, knocking his knees painfully into the underside of the booth’s table, bolted to the floor. What’s left of his drink topples over as he scrambles out and bolts toward the little hallway to the bathroom.

“What the fuck, dude?” Richie startles.

Eddie slams past the door into the bathroom and flings himself at the sink, instinctively gripping at the mirror hung over it with years of muscle memory. He pulls the medicine cabinet open, but it’s a bar not his or anyone else's home, so there’s just a few extra rolls of toilet paper and a bottle of 409 in there. By the time he shuts it again to look at himself, Richie has followed him in.

He locks the doorknob and rounds on Eddie. “Fucking tell me what’s going on! There’s weird shit going on in Derry, I fucking _know already_.”

Eddie keeps pulling and the tie around his neck finally slips free. “Do I look like-? I look like me, still,” he sees in the mirror. Same scared eyes as always. Same breakable features. His hair is not quite dry, but as thick as ever. “What year is it?!”

Richie watches his reflection, bewildered. “2016. When the fuck do _you_ think it is?”

Eddie whirls around to face him. “Do I look like I’m sixty-nine?”

Richie holds up two fingers. “One; _nice_ ,” he says on the first. “And two; no. Call me ageist but if you’re pushing seventy then you’ve got totally incredible skin. You’re fucking drop dead gorgeous for your age. ”

“ _Dead_.” Eddie’s empty stomach drops.

Eddie died. He’s suddenly sure of it. He died and he was dead for _years_ and now he’s not. Why is he here? _For how long?_ There’s no reason he shouldn’t melt into a puddle right now, on the grubby tiled floor of the bathroom!

“I don’t belong here. Not now! He _killed_ me,” Eddie panics. “Pennywise killed me-“

“Wait-“ Richie grabs him by the shoulders.

“We didn’t do it- we didn’t finish him. He got Stan, and Richie. _My_ Richie-“

“Eddie-“

“And Mike! Beverly and Ben and Bill, too!”

With each name, the furrow in Richie’s brow etches deeper. He shakes Eddie. “No! Look at me. We KILLED It. That clown ass motherfucker is dead, Eddie.”

The group of friends at the hospital- _so familiar..._

“I’m not your Eddie,” he shakes his head. “ _I’m_ dead! And everyone I love is dead, too!” Eddie sobs. His chest feels like it could collapse in on itself. He’ll shrivel into a husk, until he’s as rail thin as the desiccated corpse he ought to be.

Richie’s hands slide up from Eddie’s shoulders to take hold of his face. Thumbs stroke the ridge of his cheeks. “You don’t look dead to me. You’re okay.”

“Richie,” he gasps, hands fanning at his mouth for lack of an aspirator. “I- I-“

“You’re breathing. It’s gone," Richie says certainly. "You got this. I got you, Eds.”

Eddie sucks in a hiccuping breath. That name- just for him, given by his friends. When this Richie says it, the love in it might not be for him, exactly, but it is real. They may be mixed up like socks from different pairs, matched together, but he’s not looking at their feet. He keeps his eyes steady on Richie’s, willing himself to breathe and believe. _Believe!_ Maybe they’re both scared stupid, but Richie’s got him- is breathing in time with him to try and calm him, and it’s working. Eddie’s shaking hands fall to his chest to feel it, to borrow some of the guts that all Richies seem to have in spades. His fingers curl into the material of his sweatshirt, pulling desperately.

Mouths crash together as Eddie reels him in. It’s bruising in a way that insists that _yes-_ he still has nerves and blood and, as he leans into Richie, a living body that floods with heat. He finds his hands holding fast to the place where Richie’s hips bump into his own, keeping him close. He’s barely ever kissed before, and has no idea what he’s doing. He pulls back between pecks too much, he thinks, but that doesn’t seem to deter Richie. He chases Eddie and draws him in, again and again, his lips as intoxicating as the taste of the drink still upon them. It’s hard to remember why Eddie had resisted this sort of thing for so long. 

_Because those men are sick,_ says his mother’s voice. _They’re degenerates._

But what worse fate could possibly befall him now, Mother? _I’ve already_ _died_.

And now- this might be the most alive he’s ever felt. Richie backs him into the edge of the sink, then hoists him up with strong arms and sits him there. He presses into the vee of Eddie’s legs and hooks his fingers into his suspenders, pulling at him just as hungrily.

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he says, kissing Eddie’s neck. “Like an angel crossed with a sunbeam. It should hurt to touch you.”

“Touch me,” Eddie agrees. With Richie’s hands on him he feels like he’s made of light, shining from the inside out. “Please touch me,” he repeats. _Before I go out again._

Without hesitation, Richie drags his suspenders down off his shoulders and then grapples with his fly. Even though he asked for it, Eddie’s body doesn’t know how to react. This has never, _never_ happened before. A freezing shiver goes up his spine, but he’s burning up. He’s harder than he’s ever been in his life, but when Richie gets a hold of him his neck turns into jelly, dropping his head back. Immediately, Richie takes advantage of this, licking him from collar to jaw. It’s not something Eddie ever expected to _like_ , but then again he never expected to die and be resurrected into a future with doppelgangers of he and his best friends, either. Especially not one with a Richie that could _want_ him the way he’d always wished. He’s read enough psychology books while self-diagnosing his neuroses to know this is textbook transference- probably on both their parts, but if this is the closest he’s ever going to get-

“Let- let me,” he says. Eddie threads his fingers into Richie’s hair and pulls his head back. He darts out his tongue to taste his long, scruffy neck in return. The muscle there jumps under his mouth as Richie’s arm works, stroking him. The feedback loop makes him crazy, makes him bold. He’s never had anything to say while being touched like this, because there’s never been someone else doing it. “This is better than I thought,” he admits into Richie’s neck. “This is better than being safe. And afraid.”

Richie ducks his head around to nuzzle his cheek into Eddie’s. It bumps both their glasses out of whack, but it’s still achingly tender. “You’re safe with me,” he promises with a kiss. “Just let go, Eddie.” 

With that, he noses his way down Eddie’s neck, dropping several smeared, lapping kisses at the hollow of his collar as he shoves at the tails of his shirt. He bends lower and Eddie realizes with a jolt what Richie’s about to do only a moment before he does it. He has to close his eyes. He can’t look or he’ll come right away and it won’t happen at all. In another moment, Richie slips his mouth down around his cock, tightening with every sinking inch until Eddie is enveloped more by throat than hand. A completely brand-new feeling.

“That’s so- ohh. Oh! God, Richie,” he whimpers. If this is what sex is like, he can’t help but wonder how people can get their wires so crossed, get so _upset_ about something so good. Who cares if he wants to do it with a man or a woman? Go find your own and stop worrying about mine!

Not sure where to put his hands and not wanting to flinch in a way that might make Richie stop, Eddie touches only the tips of his fingers to his hair, his back, his neck, before finally resting on his shoulders. There, the one of Richie’s hands that’s not involved in guiding him towards orgasm wraps around his right hand. The warm brush over his knuckles, the way he squeezes Eddie’s wrist and rubs his thumb over the pulse point is somehow even more intimate than what Richie's mouth is doing. He’s never had a lover of any kind, but now he struggles to remember- when was the last time someone even held his hand like this?

When he dares to look again, it’s too much, as he expected. The sight of shiny lips, red from sucking him, the slight sweaty damp of Richie’s determined forehead- so focused on making him feel good- makes the bottom of his stomach drop out. “Richie,” he grunts. “I’m- I don’t want to, uh-“

Richie gets the message but he doesn’t pull away to make Eddie deal with the messy part on his own. Instead he loops his arm around the small of Eddie’s back, holding him and keeping him safe from sliding off the counter as he starts to shake. He’s going to swallow it, Eddie realizes, not sure if he’s more thrilled or repulsed by the prospect. With a twist of Richie’s wrist, he doesn’t have time to decide.

“Oh god. Hhhhmmgg,” Eddie strangles a moan, as that heady, crashing feeling washes over him. Despite his best intentions not to, he claws into Richie’s hair as he shudders and spills down his throat.

Richie pumps him to the last, humming enthusiastically, as though he’s been craving a dessert and now it’s time to savor. He finally pulls off with a soft _yeah, honey_ , and a kiss to his clothed thigh.

“Wow,” Eddie pants, untangling himself. He wobbles backward and his head hits the mirror behind him with a soft thud. It’s mortifying, confronting the reality of doing something so obscene with another person for the first time, but it’s sort of cleansing, too- pulling down his hang ups from the rearview mirror like air fresheners. _That’s that on that_ , he thinks. And as fantastic as he feels at the moment, that is... not ideal. This is a half mad, rushed, rock bottom kind of scenario but Eddie doesn’t want it to be over so soon.

Richie wipes his face on his inner elbow, then stands up straight again, planting his hands on Eddie’s knees and leaning in to kiss his cheek. “Sorry there’s no cuddling,” he laughs by Eddie’s ear.

Before he can pull back, Eddie grabs his face to kiss him properly one last time, and to his surprise- Richie lingers. Eddie dips his tongue into it experimentally and now the bitterness of Richie’s hot mouth isn’t from whiskey, but himself. It seems like an equally acquired taste, if he’s being honest, but it soothes his fragile ego that Richie doesn’t just tuck and roll out of there.

“Should I? To, uhm, you?” Eddie asks, buttoning himself back up.

Richie pulls one of Eddie’s suspenders back up over his shoulder. “Don’t worry about me, gorgeous. But you should get back out there," he clears his throat. "I bet your sandwich is ready.”

Eddie glances at his useless watch. Even without it he knows they’ve certainly been a few minutes in here. And maybe _a little_ noisy.

He drops off the counter and slinks back out to the dining area and marches back to his seat without allowing himself to notice if any of the other patrons look at him. He’s probably beet red, but he didn’t have the nerve to check the mirror. Thankfully, there is a sandwich waiting for him to devote all his attention to when he gets to the booth again.

He eats and thinks how lucky he is that he has a much larger crisis on his plate than the fact he just had his first experience with another man. He’d been tormenting himself for a lifetime about his preferences, but now it barely registers.

_Another thirty years._

His mother must be gone by now. Some of his favorite authors, too. No Clarke or Bradbury, certainly. Probably no Antonio, his favorite driver, who was in his sixties, never missed a shift, and always sent birthday cards. He shuts out thought of the Losers. He can’t process if it’s worse for them to have all died when he did, or for them to have lived on without him. Right now, he doesn’t want to figure that out.

Richie reappears a minute or two later, looking the bounciest he has all night. He glides back into the booth and pulls a small glassy box out of his pocket. “Right, so! Apparently you’re not the only one from It’s greatest hits list to come back.” He turns the thing around to Eddie to show a tiny screen. “Oh, this is a phone, by the way. And like, a zillion other things. It’s rad, I’ll show you later, but this is what I’m _trying_ to show you-” Richie points to a gray bubble that says _Stan is alive. We’re gonna be stuck a while trying to get him out of here, but that’s what's up._

“Stanley?” Eddie grabs at the phone, half expecting it to show his faces as he speaks and top this miracle with yet another.

“Probably not the Stanley you know,” Richie says, apologetic. “But considering he offed himself three days ago that’s proof you’re not just some fucking lunatic I picked up in an emergency room, so that’s something, right?”

Eddie sits back, stunned. “I suppose. I’m glad your friend’s sake,” he says earnestly. It’s sort of a cold comfort to confirm that he’s right about being resurrected, but the jury's out if being sane in an insane situation makes him more or less likely to scream.

Richie puts his phone down on the table and takes a steadying breath. “Look. Uhm. My Eddie and Stan- they’re definitely from here. I remember them. But I definitely don’t remember a bunch of clown-killing yuppies running around killing It with us when I was thirteen.” He frowns a little. “Coulda used the help.”

That admission makes Eddie’s heart squeeze. It was terrible that children had to be mixed up in all this, in any time. “I bet you were tough as nails,” Eddie half-smiles.

“Are _you_?” Richie asks. “Cause I gotta say, I don’t think you’re, like, from this fucking dimension or universe or whatever, and I don’t want you freak out all over. I really don’t think I’ll get away with blowing you in the bathroom again.”

Eddie chokes. “Beep-”

“Oh, you’re not a buncha ‘beep beep’ers in your dimension, too _,_ are you?” Richie slaps the tabletop. “Can’t a guy lighten the mood with a fucking joke anymore!? My friends practically had me convinced the whole world was a robot simulation. Fuckin’ _beep beep_. The multi-universe needs new material even worse than I do!”

In any dimension, he’s definitely a Richie, Eddie thinks, chuckling despite himself. It’s doubtful that many people, even in this era, can run their mouth like him. Richie settles down when he sees Eddie laughing and smiles too.

“Well,” says Eddie, looking squarely at this familiar stranger. “Back from the dead, thirty years in the future- what difference does it actually make?”

“That’s the spirit!” Richie says with a cheesy grin and swinging fist. 

“You’re a real ham, you know that?”

“ _Ham_.” Richie shakes his head. “You gotta stop saying cute Boomer shit like that.”

Eddie thinks. “I don’t... I don’t stand out do I?”

When Richie looks at him, eyebrow quirked, there’s just as much a shade of _sunbeam angel_ as mocking. “Of course you do.”

“Oh.” If Eddie wasn’t already blushing...

“Maybe I can help you.” Richie scratches his head. “I mean, uhm. If you want. It’s gonna be hard getting on your feet. I mean, you don’t even have a wallet full of those old, tiny Lincoln fives. Or ID. I don’t know if you’d try to go back to New York, but you can’t fly without ID these days. You’re white, so you’re not gonna get deported if you make a scene with TSA, but like- no fuckin’ way you’re not gonna run into some trouble.”

Right. He needs to think about what happens next. It’s not like he can look up Mike as he had planned if he only exists as the person Richie knows now. He can’t pay for the sandwich he’s currently eating, never mind whatever inflated price an airline ticket is these days. “I don’t even have a reservation at the Inn,” Eddie realizes.

“There’s only the ‘Townhouse’, now, so you _extra_ don’t,” Richie points out. “I can get you a room, if that’s what you need. If you need a place in New York, I’ve always wanted to have a base there.”

Eddie holds up a hand. He’s as allergic to taking favors as he is to pollen. “I couldn’t let you do that.”

“According to my mother, I’ve got more money than I know what to do with, and you’ve got jack shit, so...” Richie twirls his fingers around on both hands and then rubs them together mouthing _moohlah_.

“That’s still too generous.”

Richie looks at him, obviously able to tell it makes Eddie miserable to need such a huge amount of help. “Or you could. You know. Come bunk up with me for awhile. In Chicago.” His eyes flicker back and forth from the table to Eddie.

Now, Eddie likes Richie, but he’s too old to think that immediately moving in with someone whom one has just proverbially fallen into bed with is an unimpeachable idea. “I don’t want to give you the wrong impression-”

“It wouldn’t be like _that_. That was. You know. _Kinda hot and desperate_. But no funny business. You really- you don’t owe me anything,” Richie says. Eddie breathes a sigh of relief as subtly as he can. “I just- I can see you’ll need help. And you’re one of us Losers. And what else’re you gonna do until you can get some fakes and a job and shit, right?”

“The Losers...”

“If you don’t want me to tell them about you-”

“They might notice if I turn up in Chicago.” Eddie laughs.

Richie lights up. “Do you want to?”

Barring tonight, Eddie has plenty of practice not acting on _feelings_ in the event any crop up. He takes a slow breath and a look around the bar. The career alcoholics, the people avoiding going home to someone, or no home at all- those who didn’t have someone like a Loser to fall back on. That could be a very optimistic future for him, if he didn’t have help. Now that he knew what he had been missing in his friends, he couldn’t take it for granted.

“It’s gotta be better than here.”

“With these hillbillies?” Richie points his thumb. “Hell yeah. You got outta here for a reason, right?”

“That’s right,” Eddie laughs.

Maybe, he thinks, if he’s very lucky he might figure out why he came back.  
  


  
-

They hang around Derry for another two days with the Losers, catching up with Stan, then drive back to Chicago. They compare notes on It, and Richie tries to give him the crash-course version of the last thirty years of global history but keeps getting sidetracked by pop culture non sequiturs. He’s very happy for Richie and his bounty of _Star Wars_ movies, but there was something said about America’s first black president that seems worth circling back to. Suffice to say, Richie makes about six thousand threats to throw Eddie into the deep end of the now all-encompassing internet and tie him to a chair in front of ‘YouTube’. As soon as they arrive, he forces an old (to Richie) phone on him, and coaxes him into taking a spin on the computer. Both learning methodologies give Eddie a bit of a headache, but he’s _always_ got a headache, so what else is new?

Sure, it might have been his only offer, but staying with Richie is nice. It’s sort of like what he always imagined sleep-away camp would be like, if he had ever allowed to go, and instead of expeditions into the wilderness there was a world class theater scene. There’s a permissive, Make Your Own Rules way to the future that he can appreciate after a lifetime shackled to his mother’s side. Aside from being eager to please, like a little kid with a special hobby Richie is eager to share his enthusiasm for things and introduces him all the best parts of the twenty-first century. Eddie knows eventually he’ll get sick of spending all his downtime with him, explaining things and sightseeing a city he’s already lived in for nearly twenty years, but in the meanwhile it’s nice to have a standing dinner date with someone who didn’t give birth to him.

About three weeks into their cohabitation they can’t avoid it any longer.

“All right,” Eddie clears his throat. “Let’s get this over with.” 

“Jesus, Eddie, lighten up! It’s just an email.” Richie finishes typing a web address into the browser and slides the computer from his lap to Eddie’s, seated beside him on the couch.

Eddie hovers his hands over it like it’s a dirty thing. “Well, you’re gonna razz me about it the whole time!”

Richie pushes his glasses up into his hair and rubs his temples. “Eddie. You hunt and peck when you type, it’s agonizing to watch.”

“I don’t have to type! I don’t need to email! Who would I be writing to?”

“You can be penpals with Stanley. You liked him,” Richie points out. “I don’t know _how_ you instinctively honed in on the one Loser as ancient as you are,” he adds, to himself.

“He’s an interesting guy.” He had lots of non-digital hobbies that Eddie could actually wrap his head around, for a start.

“Incorrect,” says Richie. “He’s boring. The only reason he’s not the _most_ boring Loser is because he’s not currently the one in a coma.”

Eddie grimaces at the near mention of the Other Eddie. Richie pauses, too. “Sorry, Richie. I didn’t mean for it to come up.”

“Yeah, it’s fine,” says Richie, automatically. “I mean. It's not great. Touch and go, is like, worse than just _going_. Isn't it?"

It’s hard to know what to say. “He’s made it this far. I’m sure you’ll get a chance to talk to him again.”

"Que será, será, or whatever," Richie sighs. "We wouldn’t even be talking about it if you hadn’t found him, so.” He ventures a mixed-feelinged smile. Then he twists. “Shit- it’s like, _super_ uncool of me to mope about Eddie to you. With the- you know. And you don’t have _any_ of your friends left. Shit. Sorry. I mean, I’m your friend. And boring old Stan. Everyone really liked you, even if they can’t replace your- fuck, why am I still talking?”

Poor guy. “Do you want me to beep beep you?” Eddie smirks. “Because last time-”

Richie snorts. “Yeah, you can definitely tell me to shut the fuck up.”

It’s sad to think of never seeing his friends again, of course, but on some level Eddie can choose to believe they're all out there, happy and healthy. And ultimately, the hope outweighs the evidence.

“But anyway. If you want to make any accounts online you need an email address,” Richie says, back on track. “You could like, join a message board for people who haven’t gotten over the cancellation of _Quantum Leap_ , or get a Grindr or whatever.”

“Grindr?” The future needs to come with a glossary.

“Okay,” Richie sighs. “We’re gonna have to make modern hook up culture a whole other day- _today_ is getting an email address and getting you your own fucking Pandora before you completely wreck my preferences. Maybe Twitter 101 if I can find the right alcohol pairing.”

Instead of parsing that, Eddie stares at all the little entry fields. “First up; username?”

“It can be anything. Anything someone else doesn’t already have, anyway. You might need to slap some numbers on the end of that bad boy,” Richie explains. He looks up at the ceiling and starts rattling off some ideas. “Lostcranebro90, undeddie69, princeofpinkyrings, thefinalfanilow47...”

“Can’t I just use my name?” Eddie raises an eyebrow.

“We’ll get you an email for the working stiffs when we get your ID sorted out. But you need one for junk mail and sign ups, anyway.”

“What’s yours?”

“Impliedmeatthong. It’s a Lady Gaga thing. Don’t worry about it.” Richie handwaves.

Referencing underwear of any kind in Eddie’s username is definitely out. “Remind me why I’m taking your advice?”

Richie throws his arms wide. “Who else are you gonna ask? You need a fucking email first if you wanna make internet buddies!”

Eddie chuckles. “Touché. Does it have to be a joke? Can’t it be a song, or a quote?”

“Fuck yeah. You do you!”

They fiddle around with a combination of misspellings and numbers of a few things until Eddie finally lands on betterdreamsandplenty from some favorite Joni Mitchell.

“Okay, now I need a password...”

All drama, Richie covers his eyes so as not to peek. “Pick something memorable.”

Eddie reads the page’s suggestions for how to make a strong password and types in RichiesMe@tTh0ng. 

“There. That wasn’t so hard,” Eddie concludes, clicking the ‘Next’ button at the bottom of the screen. “So, how did _Quantum Leap_ end?”

Richie moans and flops tragically against the couch. “I don’t want to talk about it.”  
  


  
-

If the past is a foreign country, then the future is full of immigrants. There are pieces of life here that Eddie recognizes and can hold in his hands. He buys a newspaper every morning when he's out for a walk, and gets a new battery for his watch. Richie's music taste is fairly eclectic, and his record collection reaches back as far as the Fifties. There's a shag carpet in the living room, and the mod look seems to have made a come back. The art of letter writing is reborn with emails. Then on the other hand, there are new customs. Everyone seems to be wising up about second hand smoke, so now Eddie can actually taste his food in a restaurant. Of course, Richie will tease him whenever he observes something like this, but Eddie is happy to play along.

“Haven’t you heard? Print is dead.”

“They said that about me, too,” Eddie sniffs, turning the page of his newspaper.

Richie crashes into the couch next to him and starts trying to peek between the pages. “Are there still cartoons in there? No one says ‘See you in the Funny Pages’ anymore,” he observes. “Well, except for me and you.”

“If I give you the cartoons will you leave me alone long enough to finish this article?”

Richie grins with every tooth on display and holds out his hands, fingers wiggling.

“Here you go, you monkeyshine,” says Eddie, separating out the page.

“Guh!” Richie yucks, as soon as he has his prize. “I forgot how fucking inky these are.” But he settles down beside Eddie, satisfied. 

-

One of the unintended benefits of not having a Social Security Number or insurance is no longer being unnecessarily medicated. Eddie’s mother had cowed his doctors as a child, of course, and then he had carried his fiction of a medical history with him into adulthood unquestioningly. Now that was all over. No stash, no syrups, no pills. Maybe the cold turkey approach wouldn’t have worked without a nice, cleansing resurrection to kick it off, but at the moment he finds the only chemical help he might appreciate is a sleep aid. Fortunately he can sleep in on those occasions when he has a rough night, which so far has kept him from taking up Richie’s offer to get him stoned, but on nights when he gets really desperate he researches online. The current thinking seems to be that laying about in bed not sleeping can worsen insomnia, so the next time he wakes and can’t get back to sleep, Eddie wanders out into the living room for a change of scenery.

He stops in his tracks at the sight of blue light from a laptop screen illuminating Richie’s face in the dark.

“Hey,” Richie smiles. Whatever he’s doing, he stops and leans back into the couch, locking his fingers behind his head. “Can’t sleep?”

Eddie shuffles around the coffee table and sits down with him. “Nightmare. You?”

“Had an idea I needed to write down,” Richie shares. “Aaand then afterward I got distracted by cute animal videos.”

“The internet’s true purpose,” Eddie observes. A cage full of parakeets are bopping around to soft music. He steals Richie’s computer off him and immerses himself in it for a few moments, willing the anxiety of his dream to be overwritten by the simple delight.

Richie slumps closer to watch with him as it rolls from one video to the next. “Do you dream about It?” he asks.

“Oh, no. Not anymore.” He still dreams of Derry, but it’s never frightening. Mostly he’s just laying under a tree by the river, looking up at the sky.

“Me neither,” says Richie. “And Bev said she stopped, too. I think- I think that’s how we know it’s really over.”

Well, that’s one theory. Eddie takes a deep breath, turning over the dream he just had in his mind. “I woke up- in the dream, I mean- and I was back in New York. In 1990. Well, I dunno, maybe a little before, or a little after,” he quibbles. “But it was like I hadn’t left. Ma was there, with some fad diet she was trying to talk me into. And everything was the same but nothing...” Eddie thinks of the tasteless meal she cooked and the sun that shone, absent of heat- “Nothing was _enough_.”

“What d'you mean?”

Eddie turns in his seat with his shoulder into the couch, laying his head so he can look at Richie. He’s been shaving more dutifully these days, so that even in the middle of the night, he never looks quite so tired as he did when they first met. Maybe because he has someone setting an example in the bathroom every morning? Eddie flatters himself to think he might be a good influence on Richie.

“It’s stupid, really. I just had a song stuck in my head- one that you like. The ‘I just met you’ one?” says Eddie.

“CRJ, right on! It’s a bop that transcends time.”

Eddie chuckles. “Right! I couldn’t remember it exactly and it was driving me crazy I couldn’t go listen to it because it didn’t _exist_ yet.”

“As far as nightmares go, that’s kind of a dud.” Richie smirks. “Don’t you want to go back?”

Eddie only has to think for a moment. “Not really. I think I lost enough ground as it is, not moving forward. Moving backward just seems like a waste.”

“That’s smart,” Richie hums. “I bet they miss you, though. _I’d_ miss you,” he says, touching his chest emphatically. “But if you can’t be there, and if as far as they knew, the alternative was that you were dead- I think they’d be happy you’re doing well here.”

“I think so, too,” Eddie agrees.

Richie pulls the laptop back over to himself. “You wanna watch something that always puts me to sleep?”

“I’ll try almost anything, at this point.”

He taps away at the keyboard for a few seconds and comes back with one of those PBS telethons for an album of folk music that was always somehow six times the length of the actual album. Somewhere between ‘Day is Done’ and ‘500 Miles’ Richie dozes off, face smashed into a throw pillow, so Eddie removes his glasses and leaves them on the coffee table beside his own until morning.

-

When Richie works out of town, Eddie has the place to himself, which is novel because he’s never lived alone. It turns out, he is not very good at this. To get a little society, he finally takes the plunge of finding a church. He doesn’t look it up online or anything, though he’s sure he could. Come Sunday morning, he lets his feet take him on down the road in a direction that he thinks he’s seen a steeple on previous walks, and winds up at narrowly built Catholic church. It’s easy enough to slip into a pew close to a side aisle, where he can leave quietly if he must. He worries that although he’s always liked to believe in lovely things, his experiences with the supernatural might have taken the shine off of religion- but there are still sweet little grannies and families with slightly bored children, right? And he’s always liked the music. This particular parish seems to have a fondness for some of the Schutte-scribed hymns of the Eighties, so it’s all right, all in all. He won’t take communion, but as they sing- _Here I am, Lord_.

At home, he keeps the TV or the radio on most of the time, or opens a window to let in the sounds of the city to keep him company. With his heightened awareness that something’s not as it usually is, he continues to struggle with sleep. He stays up even later, in a staring contest with the moon, hung between the spindly branches outside.

He’s three nights into his second stint as a lone wolf, lounging around the living room with some Judy Collins when the buzzer rings. _Ah well_. The moon had already made him blink anyway. Since he had already taken off his watch for the night, Eddie checks the clock on the phone he is adjusting to having, and pockets it on his way to the intercom panel. Just after eleven o’clock. It’s probably Richie getting home earlier than expected. Rather than call down, he simply buzzes to open the lobby door.

A few moments presumably in an elevator later, there’s a knock. Richie must have his hands full (maybe he’s brought back some local dish, again!) so Eddie goes to let him in. Instead of his rather tall roommate, he opens the door eye-to-eye with a wild haired girl clutching a backpack.

“Uh, can I help you?” Eddie kneejerks.

Her brow furrows. “Isn’t this 317?”

Eddie glances at the number on the door, as though he isn’t sure. “It is.”

“Richie Tozier’s place?”

“Yes?”

Without another word, the girl pushes past him into the apartment in an upset. She makes a bee line through the entryway, down the hall, directly to the bathroom. So- it would appear she knows the layout, apparently.

Eddie follows along at a distance, bewildered, thoughts racing about what hazards the bathroom might present to an anonymous young person in an obvious state of distress. “May I ask your name?” he calls through the closed door, trying not to sound like he’s about to bust through. Just a friendly question, no reason to do something drastic.

“It’s _Wendy_ ,” she calls back. _Uh doi!_

The tone sounds so much like Richie, Eddie is instantly sure she’s a blood relative. Geez, she looks only about seventeen- did he have some illegitimate daughter that he’d neglected to tell him about?

He should call. If it’s a family matter, then he shouldn't stick his nose into it. But- he doesn’t want to step away from where he can see the bathroom door to be discreet about it. Eddie sighs. He’s going to have to give in and _text_ , isn’t he? He detests the _talk to me now talk to me now_ insistence of texting conversation. So much pressure- and he’s not nearly fast enough to keep up with Richie’s nimble fingered quips as he is verbally. Not yet.

He locates the correct application and fires off an update, hoping for a little clarity in return.

 **EK** Wendy is here.

The water in the sink runs for a very long time, making Eddie think of one of those movies where someone sets the faucet as a distraction, then bolts through the window. They’re a little too high up for that. And then what would be the point? To make a getaway with _what_? The most expensive thing in the bathroom was probably an economy sized bottle of conditioner.

 **RT** that’s my niece. she goes to northwestern? northeastern? one of the two

 **EK** Were you expecting her?

 **RT** i dunno i told her she could always come to me if she needed since im in town

 **RT** is she okay?

Finally, the bathroom door opens again and Wendy comes out, looking slightly less frazzled, having smoothed out her hair with a bit of wetting and washed her face. Eddie can definitely see the Tozier in her features now that he’s looking for it. Sort of square, dark and curly. He’s blocking her way to the living room so she stares at him with a familiar intensity.

“Why don’t you sit down?”

Wendy marches past him to the couch and plops down on what is customarily Eddie’s seat, still clutching her bag. No hope of carrying on with his dull evening as planned, he supposes.

She points at his tee shirt. “You like Daft Punk?” she asks. “That’s cool, I love the RAM album.”

Eddie plucks absently at the material. “It’s Richie’s shirt not mine.” He has inherited a number of band tees as sleepwear, not wanting to hit up Richie for cash to buy pajamas no one’s seeing anyway.

“Oh, that makes sense,” the girl says. “Is he here?”

“Sorry, he’s working. He’ll be back around noon tomorrow. And I’m Eddie, by the way.” He watches as Wendy scrubs at her eyes, smearing her makeup. “Are you all right?”

“It’s just. You know. College is _hard_ , man.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet.”

“And then my stupid roommate has her gross boyfriend over all the time, and I can’t get any sleep-“

Eddie can relate to the trial of unwanted awakeness, certainly. “Are you hungry? I could reheat some... something.”

Wendy shrugs, so Eddie takes it as an excuse to leave the room and text Richie back.

 **EK** She’s having roommate troubles.

He fixes up some decaf tea and makes a few slices of buttered toast, and when he picks up his phone again to take everything to the coffee table, Richie has responded.

 **RT** let her stay the night. its cool

 **RT** not everyone can have a match made in ER heaven like me n u

It makes him smile. He’s still smiling when he hands Wendy her cup and settles into the other end of the couch with his own. She wolfs three slices of toast, rattling on about how her roommate’s boyfriend lives in the same dorm building, so there was no oversight on how often he spent the night like there would be if he’d been from another building or even another school.

“And, have you come out and told her this is too much?” he asks easily. The problems of teenagers are breezily straightforward, compared to his own.

“Like, it's _obviously_ too much!” Wendy rolls her eyes.

Eddie chuckles. “Not if she’s not looking for your reaction. She’s probably too busy having a good time. Has tunnel vision.”

“Her grades have gotta be suffering,” Wendy sneers. “I never see her doing work.”

“Well, that will alert her something is out of whack, eventually. You could save her some trouble and give her a heads up, in the meanwhile,” Eddie points out. “And actually _tell_ her that you need school nights to be a little less... crowded.”

He would hate it if Richie was always bringing dates home, and he doesn’t even have a 9-5!

Wendy moans. “Ugh, but it’s so much easier to just glare at them.” She quickly licks her buttery fingers and then drops her backpack between her knees to fish for her phone, buzzing from within.

“Pfft. Hey Uncle Richie,” she answers. “Yeah. Your boyfriend let me in. He’s cool... Yeah, all right. Thanks. G’night.”

Eddie blushes. “Uhm-“

“He said not to keep you up,” Wendy laughs. “I’ll go take the guest room. I know the drill, I’ve been here before.”

Now Eddie must be steaming out his ears. “But-“

Obviously _he_ lives in the guest room, because he is not Richie’s boyfriend. What on earth had given Wendy that impression?

His phone gets another message, distracting him from fending off Wendy’s advance on his territory. (Though, to be fair, he had so few personal effects, and was so tidy making the bed every day, it probably _looks_ uninhabited.)

 **RT** haha omfg

 **EK** I’m so sorry. She just assumed.

 **RT** whitney was right, the children really are the future

 **RT** heteronormativity who?

 **EK** What if she tells your family?

 **RT** they will probably stop wondering how the fuck i havent accidentally knocked someone up yet

 **RT** jk i came out to them like a month ago, don’t sweat it dude

 **EK** She’s taking the guest room. I’ll sleep on the couch.

 **RT** aw babe we just got together... dont make it look like ur in the dog house with me SO BAD that u hafta sleep on the couch when im not even home lol

 **RT** ur so old it would be elder abuse to make u sleep on the couch

 **RT** im losing it rn, why didnt this happen before my set i could riff on this for years

 **RT** anyway i heard the folk music. ur up late. go sleep in my bed its fine

Eddie sighs. He imposes on Richie enough as it is.

 **EK** Are you sure? You don’t mind?

 **RT** only thing i mind is u keep using two spaces after a period

 **RT** its not a typewriter old man. it won’t jam

 **RT** BE FREE

 **EK** OK. Thank you.

 **RT** :)

Eddie has learned fairly quickly that though Richie could certainly be sly, when it came to the question of his comfort with a given situation, he was guileless. A human mood ring. There aren’t enough blankets in the linen closet to make up a third bed on the couch, anyway. With a yawn, Eddie stretches out on his tiptoes, turns off the music, and then lumbers off to his temporary digs. Pretty much as soon as his head hits the pillow, he’s out like a light. It isn’t until morning when he wakes up smelling like Richie that he sees the rest of his texts, which at this point, he cannot dignify with a response.

 **RT** just wash the sheets if you jack it in my bed

 **RT** or dont ur not my fuckin maid lol

 **RT** ur not responding so either ur already asleep or its a real hot spank sesh

 **RT** if u need anything check the nightstand for a number of amenities courtesy of Chez Tozier!

 **RT** night babe keep the bed warm for me ;)  
  
  


-  
  
  


The new material Richie is feeling out will require a bit of an update to his image, so Beverly comes to town to style him and Eddie gets conscripted to drive her around. He doesn’t mind. It’s nice to have something to do between Craigslist gigs, helping people who can’t afford shop rates fix their cars. Rather than leave him to his crosswords in the parking garage like a client from the old days, she insists he come join her for the shopping. They return to Richie’s apartment laden with about a dozen suits and an ungodly amount of separates and accessories, besides. The three of them cycle through the pile together, and Eddie thrills every time Richie particularly likes the print of a shirt- since it’s always one he picked out.

Richie jumps as Beverly sticks her hands down the front of his slacks to tuck his shirt. “Woah, girl! I’m telling Ben!”

“I can’t believe you didn’t own a belt, Richie, _really_ ,” says Beverly.

“I have a fantastic ass. My pants stay up on their own just fine. Tell her, Eddie!”

Eddie crosses his arms. “Every single pair of jeans you own sags in the seat.”

“Not the support I was looking for, but I’m flattered you noticed.”

Beverly laughs. “Don’t worry, Eddie. I’ll get your man fixed up so you can stand to be seen with him.”

 _Your man._ He supposes that after a day of listening to him go on and on about Richie, it must be as obvious to her as it had suddenly become to him, listening to himself talk. _Your man_ , he thinks every time he sees Richie wearing a belt, after that.  
  
  


-

He’s going crazy. The apartment is nice, and the fingertip access to information is nice, and the Netflix is- well actually it’s _kind of overwhelming_ and also nice- but Eddie not having the papers required to get a real job yet is making him much more of a homebody than he used to be. He listens to audiobooks and learns to cook things he had thought he couldn’t eat and tries to wrap his head around the newscycle, and that’s all very absorbing- but it can’t take up his every waking moment. There are in between times when he feels it. There are moments when he’s caught off guard by finding a pair of Richie’s socks in with his, or the way there’s no space for two people to pass each other in the pantry. Since Eddie’s always around, and Richie’s schedule is so irregular, they see an awful lot of each other for long stretches. It makes Eddie’s emotional predicament hard to ignore.

As promised months ago, there’s been no crossing of the line except for flirty words and a few ‘I’ve seen your dick’ type jokes. The thing is- it’s never been clear how much of that was just Richie being Richie, and how much was actual heat. There’s certainly been no purposeful, physical contact. Very little accidental contact, too. Best behavior, all around. When they share the couch, Richie will recline his seat instead of sprawling along it like he usually does when Eddie isn’t already there. Eddie sits on the other end, legs crossed. When handing each other things in the kitchen, there’s no risk of brushing hands, as Richie will put a box down near Eddie, or toss it. The only predictable exception is when Eddie insists that they eat dinner at the table, and sits across from him with his socked feet stretched out as far across the carpet as his legs will allow.

So, they’re finishing up a salad and tapping along under the table to some synthy music Richie likes and it’s _heaven_. It has to be, because Eddie technically died and now he’s here and it’s lovely. When their toes inevitably touch- he thinks it.

_This has to be it. This has to be why I'm here._

There was so little room for imagination in his life before this, but now it runs away with him. Richie bumping into him as he taps the beat of the music turns into Richie dancing with him (He’s seen Richie dance. It’s always amusing, and it’s always over before Eddie can get close enough). Richie’s thousand watt smile turns into Richie kissing him again. That last one’s an especially hard daydream to rip himself away from.

“Anyway, I know you’d have to drive four or five hours to get there. But I figured if you wanted to see me in action at the end of that leg of the tour, it’d be cool. Jon Hamm’s introducing me- which means fuck all to you- but trust me. He’s hot. And we could hang out after, I know some cool places there. Eddie?”

“Hmm?” He stops staring at Richie’s smirking mouth.

Though Richie must notice, he doesn’t let on. “St. Louis?”

“Sure, Richie. That sounds wonderful.”

Richie’s trying to spear one last olive. Richie doesn’t like olives, it turns out, but the first time Eddie put them on a salad and noticed this, he offered to leave them off in the future and Richie insisted it was more fun to pick them out and lob them across the table at his plate. He finally nails it and is about to pull his fork back when his phone rings.

“Saved by the bell, old man.” Richie swaps his fork for his phone.

Eddie rolls his eyes at him and stands up to take his plate to the kitchen. “You done?”

Richie nods wordlessly before turning to his call. “Hey Eddie!”

Because he’s doing better now, the Other Eddie. Out of the hospital, at any rate. He has a home and a wife (apparently) in New York that he returned to for his continuing recovery, and after a month and a half of playing phone tag with Richie, one of them was bound to catch the other. Eddie clears the table and cleans up in the kitchen, not listening, but sort of listening.

“No, no. I understand. Where the fuck are you right now? It sounds like you’re inside a Cuisinart. Ugh fine. So, you know how I have that roommate? He’s not... Well I kinda need a favor for him, and you kinda have to do it... No... Because he’s the guy who pulled you out of the quarry. Well- fuck off, you were like, _so_ sick- it seemed liked a longer fucking conversation, and you were awake for fucking five minutes at a time, asshole. Right. Look, uhm. He needs some fake ID’s. The works. Birth certificate, Social Security- we already got him a driver’s, though... Because you know like, a _thousand_ people who work in documentation! There's gotta be someone savvy enough to know how to make some fakes and take my money to shuttup about it.”

Eddie invents the job of sorting through the fruit basket for any produce that ought to be thrown away, instead of having to head back through the dining area to get to the living room again. Apples: good, pears: good, the half a bag of clementines that Richie can’t peel without singing _Oh mah darlin’, oh mah darlin’_ to Eddie.

“-I’ll get to that in a minute just- his- like his _real_ name? Or the name we want on the fakes? Yes, of course I do. Uhm, Edward Kleiner. With a K. Figure, you know. Keep the signature looking natural that way. Because his real name... I’m-! Shh, I’m not trying to like, implicate you in a fucking capital crime! Listen. It’s uhm. It’s honestly, _actually_ Eddie Kaspbrak...”

The phone’s tiny speaker strains in expletive.

“Yeah,” Richie groans. “I didn’t think you were gonna like that.”

After that the sound of Richie’s call disappears behind the shutting of his bedroom door.  
  
  


-

  
  
He has to assume that by now Richie has talked out whatever he needs to talk out with his own Eddie, because he can’t exactly ask and confirm, now can he? 

He knows there are things that still belong to the other man- like Richie has never called him ‘Eds’ since that first night, and while he’s overheard a ‘Spaghetti’ or two that made his ears prick, that too is reserved. There are special nicknames only for Eddie, though. He’s ‘Blondie’, and ‘Old Man’, and Richie loves a good joke about their ‘May/December bromance’. Due to this, it comes as a great shock to Richie when _he’s_ the one who slips and falls on the ice while they’re walking back from an evening at the movies on Eddie’s birthday.

“Fuck,” Richie groans. “I hope you caught that on camera for my sizzle reel.”

Careful not to hit the same patch of black ice, Eddie crouches next to him, splayed out on the ground. He scoops his hands under Richie’s shoulders then hesitates. “Shit,” Eddie grimaces. He got a lot of air on the way down. “How’s your head?”

“Uh oh, I must be dying if _you’re_ swearing.”

“Maybe,” Eddie snorts. “I’ve never got to call 911 on a cellphone before, it’s tempting...”

One of Richie’s hands grabs for Eddie’s elbow so he can help haul him off the sidewalk. It doesn’t look great- his knuckles are bloodied and stuck with bits of rock salt. Richie rubs his backside once he’s on his feet again, but it turns out the heels of both palms were scraped up pretty good. “Hhhssshit, that fucking hurt.”

Eddie makes him turn his hands over for inspection. “Ouch. We’ll get you patched up at home, Richie. Are you good to walk, or should we get a cab?”

“I’ll spring for a cab. Came down on my hip,” Richie says, limping a step forward to hook his arm into Eddie’s.

Eddie tsks. “It’ll have to be replaced. Luckily at my age, I get a two-for-one discount on them.”

“Ha ha.” Richie leans into him and although it’s bitterly cold out, Eddie feels as warm as July. Arm in arm, they make their way to the curb.

Back at the apartment, Eddie has Richie rinse his hands off, then sit on the closed toilet for tending. He carefully pats Richie’s hands dry and evaluates which cuts will need bandaging. While he dabs salve onto the worst of it, Richie waggles his eyebrows up at Eddie.

“This is gonna make it tough to whittle the ol’ stick.”

Eddie bites back a laugh. “Could be worse. You could’ve cracked your head open right before your tour. You should’ve seen the goose egg Richie got the one time the guys talked me into going ice fishing with them. Right in the middle of the forehead.” He taps Richie’s head playfully, getting carried away with the sudden dam burst of physical contact. Between helping Richie back to the apartment and cleaning him up, they’ve been practically holding hands for almost an hour.

Richie goes cross eyed, following the touch. “Yikes! My hairline’s already bad enough.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Eddie says, a bit too fondly for his own liking.

Richie grins smugly. “Was OG Richie as irresistible as me?”

“...I resisted.”

“Really? I always figured maybe you and him...”

Eddie nearly drops the box of band-aids, but catches it before it hits the floor. “No. No- I’m sure he’s out there somewhere with his fifth or sixth wife by now.”

“His loss,” Richie shrugs. “Funny, though. That it didn’t work out in either time. If-“

But Richie doesn’t say if _what_. He hisses as Eddie applies a bandage across the heel of his right hand, where he caught himself the hardest. It should only take a day or two to heal enough to forgo dressing, but it does look like it will be annoying in the meanwhile. Eddie should keep an eye out for helpful tasks that might give Richie's injury a break. Like rinsing his plate, holding the door, or _whittling his stick_ \- oh, stop it!

He needs to either get over his crush, or get the hell out of here. The forged papers should be coming soon. Then he can get some real work and his own place and try to pay Richie back without it being a whole big hairy deal.

“There should be Tylenol in the cabinet...” Eddie locates it and pops out two tablets for Richie’s sore hip. Rather than hold out his busted hands to take them, Richie opens his mouth like a baby bird. Eddie sighs and drops them in. “Anything else I can do for you?” Eddie asks facetiously. “Carry your sorry behind to bed and read you a story about little boys who don’t wear the right shoes for the weather?”

“You’re sucha DILF,” Richie grins up at him.

“I’m not googling that. Last time I googled ‘yiffing’ and I still haven’t recovered.”

Richie giggles. “That was the best fucking day of my life."

Eddie could just about sing. "All done," he tells Richie, but he lingers, watching him pick up the band-aid wrappers scattered on the counter and wash the remainder of salve off his hands.

"What would I do without you?” 

And what will Eddie do without Richie? As much as Eddie doesn’t like to think about it, they’ll have to find out at some point. Later that evening- because they’ve been staying up _together_ a lot lately- in a lull between episodes of _The X-Files_ , Eddie tries to ask.

“So, when I have my ID all sorted out and I can work again-”

Richie’s rolls his sleepy head around to look at Eddie. “There’s no pressure, dude.”

“I know, I know. You must want to have your place back to yourself at some point, though. So-”

“You don’t have to leave,” Richie says, not letting him get to his point about yet another favor he needs to ask.

Richie has always maintained that he’s happy to share the wealth, and Eddie has always thanked him and tried to exist as marginally as possible. He wouldn’t want to wear out that welcome, but Eddie’s been thinking that maybe he can get a business loan and start a new company if Richie has enough hot to trot friends in town that he can cite as future clients.

“Don’t I? Someday?”

Richie’s knee nudges Eddie’s. “Get back to work if it makes you happy, man. But you should stay. Who the fuck else will insist on vacuuming under the sofa once a month?”

“Thanks,” says Eddie. Unable to resist now that their unspoken moratorium on touching has apparently been lifted, he swats Richie in the thigh. Unfortunately he forgot about his hip.

“Ow, you dick!” He frowns deeply at Eddie and fakes a sniffle.

“Oh dear. Maybe I should call 911, after all...”  
  
  


-

He misses Richie like crazy while he’s off doing a string of shows in the Midwest, and meets up with him for the last stop in St. Louis. He enjoys their dinner at Union Station, and going beer tasting, and hurrying away from the Whispering Arch (much prettier than the one in Grand Central) when Richie swears up a storm to some unwitting tourists instead of him. They stay the night (in separate rooms, to Eddie’s increasing anguish) and then drive back to Chicago together. As they cross the entirety of the state of Illinois, Richie refuses to tell him anything about _Mad Men_ , insisting they should just watch it, and flips out whenever they pass a trailer transporting a horse. He clearly loves the animal, but he loves the irony of being stuck in traffic behind a creature that could race out of there even more.

“It’s just stupid redundant like when they strap a space shuttle on a 747. It’s my _favorite_ ,” Richie grins.

Eddie should drive him to Kentucky one of these days, he’d be in his glory.

They make it into Chicago during rush hour. With all the stop and start, Eddie’s knee is stiff as a fence post by the time they get in the door, so he drops his bag and hobbles over to drape himself on the couch, Richie-style for a bit before putting his things away. Richie, who despite living out of a suitcase half the time has never developed the Must Unpack Immediately instinct does the same, climbing into the opposite end like a canoe, picking up Eddie’s feet and resting them in his lap.

“Are your dogs a barkin’, Grandpa?”

“Woof.”

Richie giggles and gives Eddie’s feet an absentminded rub down while they debate what to watch. It doesn’t really matter what they end up putting on, because _this_ is the main feature of the evening. The only thing Eddie can think about. 

It’s a small gesture, but also some kind of monumental shift. Ever since the ice there’s been more incidental bumping, more crowding each other in the kitchen, and tugging each other around when they’re out and about. But things like this- touching for touch’s sake, not just because your roommate makes a better door than a window- Richie doesn’t _start_ it. Eddie’s heart races like it’s the thing being kneaded, rather than his right foot. Richie’s hands never go farther up than his knees as he massages, but by ten o’clock when Eddie habitually does his nightly routine, he finds himself hoping that Richie isn’t looking too closely as he gets up.

After changing for bed and starting and quitting a bedtime crossword and turning around and telling himself _No_ at least five times, he finds himself standing at Richie’s bedroom door, knuckles poised. It’s been long enough, he thinks, that he’s not just throwing himself into things in a moment of desperation like he had before. It’s been months. He’s settled in. He’s found a jacket he doesn’t hate the cut of, and stopped openly gawping at the price of milk, and just the other day he downloaded an app he heard about without Richie’s assistance. And Richie said he should _stay_. Eddie knocks.

“...Yeah?”

Eddie pushes open the door. It’s dark in Richie’s room except for the light of his phone screen, shining on his face as he lounges in bed.

“Can I come in? You’re not trying to sleep?”

“Yeah, dude. What’s up?” Richie flops his phone down against his chest, extinguishing the light but for a halo that rings around the edges, around his heart. Eddie swallows hard and tracks his hand as it drifts off of his stomach and lands palm up on the covers, right where Eddie could take it if he dared to reach out.

“I wanted to- to talk?” Unsure of just what to say other than to continue itemizing the obvious, Eddie draws closer.

“After a day in the car together you’re not sick of the sound of my voice yet? Get the Guinness Book people on the horn!”

Eddie laughs, and the tips of his fingers brush along the edge of the bed that he wants so badly to climb into, but he should give Richie some kind of heads up first, right? “Richie, I gotta thank you,” he says. “For everything.”

“You thank me all the fucking time, Eddie. It’s like living with Emily Post.”

God, Eddie wishes. If there is conventional wisdom for this situation, he doesn’t know it. Falling for a strange science fiction future version of your childhood best friend while he foots all your bills and forges government documents on your behalf wasn’t covered in the woeful sex ed of the Sixties, or the later, more frank books he hid from his mother and barely had the nerve to crack open. Was it poor form to barge into the object of your affection’s room at night with half an erection and beg him to want something from you in return?

“Can I sit?”

Richie budges a little, in answer. His phone slides off of him to one side, but instead of catching it, Richie’s hand lands on Eddie’s knee as he tucks one leg to sit. “What, no ‘thank you’, Miss Manners?” Richie teases.

Eddie huffs. “ _Thanks_.”

“You’re sooo welcome,” Richie scrunches his nose back at him. His hand on Eddie’s knee moves ever so slightly as he smiles up at him. “So. Are you here to tuck me in?”

“Something like that,” Eddie admits.

Richie stares at him, searching him. He knows. He _must_ know, because Eddie can’t help but moon after him thoroughly enough to eclipse the sun.

“You don’t have to, Eddie. You know that, right?”

Eddie’s heart hammers in his throat as he nods. “I _want_ to.”

“Okay,” says Richie, reaching for his face as Eddie carefully bends to him. His hand wraps around the back of his neck. He must be able to feel the way Eddie’s pulse races. “It’s okay if you don’t want it to become a thing.”

Eddie had already guessed from the somewhat cavalier attitude Richie had during their first encounter that he was used to being an impermanent partner. Hearing his act in St. Louis had confirmed it, and perhaps had been the last straw. He gets that self-deprecation is the bread and butter of comedy and all that, but what kind of idiotic world would give Richie the impression he wasn’t worth investing in? Obviously _It_ was part of the trouble, like it had been for him and the Loser’s Club in his own idiotic world, but now that that was all behind them- Eddie could never forgive himself if he reinforced the idea.

“What if I do?” Eddie asks when they’re nose to nose. “What if I want it to become a thing?”

_Let me make it a thing. Let me be good to you like you deserve._

Richie kisses him hard, mashing their lips and teeth together in an unmistakable answer. The arm Eddie had been propping himself up on to lean in gives way, and he falls into Richie’s arms. As fast as he can, he pulls the rest of his legs into the bed and lays himself along Richie, eager to prove that he’s all in. Richie does him one better and slips a knee between his and hooks his ankle behind Eddie’s, locking them together at the hip. _Gotcha_.

“Jesus, you’re already hard for me, that’s so fucking hot,” Richie gasps, grinding them together. “Pretty impressive for a senior citizen.”

“Don’t be fresh,” Eddie grins.

Richie squirms and moans. “You’re being a cute old fart on purpose, stop it.”

“ _You_ stop it. I’m just trying to get my kicks in.”

Truth be told, Eddie hasn’t felt so young in ages.

They kiss and shove and roll across the bed together, not pausing when Richie’s phone clatters to the floor along with a heap of blankets. Free of obstructions, Richie pins him in the middle of the bed. Eddie lays back and lets Richie pepper him with kisses and comb his fingers into his hair. He pets it back off his forehead and tells Eddie a secret he must have been sitting on for months, now. “I’m so glad you didn’t let that quack barber talk you into changing your look, I would have had to kill him, and I really don’t need _two_ axe murders on my conscience.”

Eddie laughs but he puts a shushing finger to Richie’s lips. “Maybe let’s not talk about that.”

Richie nips at his finger. “Good call. But can I still tell you how pretty you are, my golden oldie?”

Usually Eddie is wary of being cooed at- too much like the smothering fawnings of his mother, or else it puts him on alert and makes him feel like a bully’s target, but with Richie... he actually likes it. “If you want.”

“Oh, I want,” Richie kisses him. “If I didn’t skip every art class in school to go dick around in the AV room I’d find a big fancy building and paint you on the fucking ceiling. But you’re so fucking magnificent you deserve _skill_. You’re a masterpiece.”

As they kiss again, his hand slips up the bottom of Eddie’s shirt and traces along the lines there. Around a pectoral, along a rib, up and down the center line, dipping into his navel. Then he tweaks a nipple to such expressive effect that maybe he’s more of an artist than he gives himself credit for.

“You like that, Eddie?”

He arches into the touch when Richie does it again. “ _Shit_.”

“Every time I hear you swear, somewhere an angel gets its first boner.”

“Don’t-”

“Tease you?” Richie kisses under his chin.

“Don’t stop.”

“Mmm.”

Two pairs of hands scrabble, first at Eddie’s shirt, then Richie’s. Eddie’s seen Richie shirtless before but tried not to stare, so now he really lets himself enjoy it as he whips their clothes off into a corner. He’s broader than Eddie in a way that looks strong, steeped in those Maine lumberjack genetics, but he’s not _that_ kind of celebrity, so he still looks like most men. Most men don’t look at Eddie like he just waved a magic wand and granted their every wish, however.

He sits back and spiders his large hands across Eddie’s chest, touching every square inch reverently before he returns to roll both thumbs over him simultaneously, making Eddie shiver. He lowers his head first to kiss Eddie’s mouth, then the center of his chest.

“Could you come from this?” Richie asks curiously. He moves again and drags his tongue and teeth over a nipple and Eddie nearly blacks out.

“I have no idea,” he admits a little breathlessly. “I’ve never had anyone do this- well. I’ve never _had_ anyone, before.”

Richie freezes. “Are you for real?”

Eddie feels a little like he’s been caught in a lie. He thinks for a minute how to put it. “I couldn’t- it wasn’t- it wasn’t _safe_ and I didn’t want to unless there was someone-”

“Oh. Oh, Eddie.” Richie lays his cheek on Eddie’s bare chest and hums sympathetically. He gathers one of Eddie’s hands into his and kisses the knuckles and holds it there against his lips. “I get it. I know. It’s shitty sometimes.”

The tone of sorrow in his voice compels Eddie to wrap his arms around Richie. “Should I have told you?”

“I was really fucking stupid not asking more questions, but that’s on me,” says Richie. ”Don’t get me wrong, I think there’s like, a cosmic thing going on here, but I kicked myself for giving a stranger head without asking if he’s clean for like, a week until I could get tested. No offence,” he winces.

Things are generally better now, Eddie has learned, but he has worried in clearer headed moments that Richie was prone to carelessness. After all, he knows it can be hard to muster respect for yourself if you’re not getting it from anywhere else.

He pats Richie’s back and dips his nose into the hair at the top of his head. “I care about you. And your friends care about you. You deserve better than a men’s room and a spotty background check.”

Richie turns to look up at him. “So do you,” he says. “And I- I wasn’t in a great headspace. But I’m way better now.”

“I can see that,” Eddie smiles. “Your new act. You're reaching out to people honestly. That’s really good.”

“Good enough to win me an Emmy?” Richie grins. “You’ve been to awards shows, you oughtta know.”

“Maybe.” Eddie musses Richie’s hair down into his face petulantly. “Just remember to book me in advance. You can’t afford my last-minute rates.”

“Who said you’re driving me? You’re my _date_.”

The idea makes Eddie feel like he’s already all decked out, looking like a million bucks. “Your date?”

“If you can stand to be seen in public with me under that many lightbulbs, yeah. Fair warning, I'm a fucking sweat factory.”

Eddie makes a noncommittal noise, but inside he’s cartwheeling. “I dunno, Richie. I’ve seen your laundry.”

“Why, I oughta!” Richie gives him a spiteful pinch, but it’s directed at such a target that Eddie can’t really cry foul play, but in pleasure.

“Mmrichie.”

Richie resumes his experiment, after that. He roams Eddie’s body with his mouth, on a one man mission to see how far he can get him without touching his cock. Even in ordinary, nonsexual circumstances Richie is so quick and inventive, Eddie is pretty sure he could manage to get him off with a whack to the funny bone. He certainly gets interesting results from sucking on Eddie’s fingers.

Eddie sits back against the headboard, helplessly rutting against Richie’s bottom as he sits in his lap.

“What do you like?” Eddie asks, thinking of where these slippery fingers can go. "What can I do for you? To you?" He hasn’t yet put his hands down Richie’s pants, but he knows he’s going to. He wants to do it right.

Richie takes his mouth away, giving him a chance to trail his fingers down his chest, too. He inhales at the chill touch. “I like- hmm. What do I like?” he wonders out loud. “Usually I do what someone else likes and if I’m very lucky, in return they do not tell TMZ about it,” Richie jokes.

“That’s bull.” And Eddie’s already heard that punchline in St. Louis.

“Well, I mean. I mostly just jerk off, I don’t have a fucking trademark sex position, or whatever!”

“Richie.” Eddie hooks his fingers into the waist of Richie’s sweatpants. This is some real blind leading the blind business, but maybe with the pressure on, he can work up some inspiration. As he slowly pulls down, Richie licks his lips. Eddie lets his cock bob out in front, then drags the blunt of his nails down Richie’s backside to pull the back down, too.

“Hnnnmm. Would you, uhm. I know you have a thing about being clean,” Richie prefaces, “-but would you finger my ass? It’s like, hard to do it right for yourself.”

Unbidden, Eddie imagines Richie here in this bed alone, not getting what he craved while Eddie was just a wall away. Richie twisting himself in beautiful knots. Grunting and sweating and probably swearing up a storm and maybe even thinking of Eddie, wondering what it would be like if only they had each other. It makes his mouth water. “Can you show me how?”

“I’ll do you if you do me.” 

Eddie agrees by pulling him into a kiss. 

Richie kneels off to the side of Eddie for a minute so he can wriggle out of his pants, so Eddie fumbles with his drawstring and kicks off his pajama bottoms, too. After a moment at the nightstand, Richie comes back with a little bottle.

“C’mere, blondie. Switch with me,” he says, dropping against the headboard.

It’s like the comfy feeling of pulling on a brand new sweater, the soft fuzz of thighs meeting as they slip into each other’s naked laps for the first time. Warm and velvety. If Eddie could fold it up and put it in his dresser drawer to take it out and put it on whenever he liked, he’d never wear anything else. “This is very nice,” he tells Richie, wrapping his arms around his neck.

“Just you wait!” Richie waggles an eyebrow at him. He wets his fingers and then catches Eddie looking on a bit nervously. “Kiss?” he suggests.

They do, and it serves to distract _very_ well. While Richie is nibbling on his lip, he gets so turned on that he can’t help but take himself in hand which Richie heartily encourages by diving into the kiss with even more zeal. He starts to leak.

“I think you should do it,” Eddie sighs, relaxing. Richie reaches between his cheeks and presses in a finger. It’s a little odd but it’s _good_.

“Go ahead, Eddie. Keep touching yourself.” Richie rubs his back. “I promise if you come on me I’ll be super stoked about it.”

“Good grief,” Eddie laughs. He shakily pulls at himself and drops his forehead to Richie’s shoulder as he works him open to take a second finger. The stretch is even better than the full feeling.

“You see how it’s done?” Richie asks.

“Oh _hnngyeah_. I think I see the appeal,” Eddie huffs, as if there were any doubt. Then Richie gets the next one in and hooks his fingers toward him and Eddie sees stars. He _has_ to get his mouth on Richie’s, taste his breath and inhale him and be sustained by only him. He’s so close, all that it will take is another gasp, another kiss, another word. “Talk to me, Richie. I’m nearly there.”

“Yeah, honey, come on,” Richie kisses into his neck. “I got you. You’re taking me so good. You’re fucking beautiful like this, Eddie. I’m gonna be thinking about you, right now, for days and days. Then you’re gonna have to come for me again, so I don’t forget. You want that? You wanna come for me?”

“Uh huh,” Eddie gulps. He squeezes his cock as Richie relentlessly nudges that spot inside him until he trips over the edge.

“Fuck, that’s hot. Oh, yeah, Eddie.” True to his word, Richie pulls Eddie’s fist even closer to himself, catching what he can. When Eddie doesn’t have anymore to give, he gathers him to his chest and kisses the sweat right off his shoulders.

It sort of tickles and Eddie starts giggling, making that strung out and snapped elastic feeling that just ripped through him twang and echo in his belly for a few heartbeats. He stays tucked up in Richie’s arms like that, flushed and giggly, until the sticky mess on his hand begins to cool uncomfortably. “Let me, ugh. Just a minute.”

Richie watches him withdraw, and just points to a tissue box on the nightstand without looking away. He bites his lip while Eddie wipes each finger clean. “God, your fucking hands,” he groans.

Eddie peers at him dubiously from behind the damp curtain of his hair. With his hand finally clean he pushes it back off his face, consciously flicking his wrist in an artful way. “You _like_ my hands.”

"I should get a landline just so I can watch you dial a rotary phone,” Richie nods. He starts to stroke himself, but hisses. “Nope, nope. Don’t even look at it,” he changes his mind. 

Eddie frowns. “No?” He gets a second tissue and leans in to mop his mess off Richie’s stomach. He grins as he accidentally on purpose grazes his thumb down the length of Richie’s shaft.

“Well okay, just a little,” Richie flip flops. He grabs the tissue out of Eddie’s hand and tosses it out of sight. “But I don’t wanna nut until you’re _at least_ two in.”

With that in mind, Eddie wraps his hand around Richie delicately, getting accustomed to the different angle and heft of him. He very much doubts there’s a risk of him finishing Richie off by accident at his non-existent skill level. Still, Richie gasps.

“Is that all right?” Eddie asks. “You were so patient. Waiting for me.”

Richie whines a little. “You don’t know how long,” he says, his voice small.

“Oh... I do, darling.” Eddie knows he means more than just the past hour spent in bed, and more then the months between their meeting and Eddie knocking at his door. He knows because he’s been waiting a long, lonely while too. He presses Richie with a long kiss, as long as he can make it, to balance things out a little. He traces the tip of his nose up Richie’s and kisses his forehead, too. “Let me take care of you.”

That’s when Richie starts to cry. Just a sniff and a little dew, at first. Maybe this is why Richie hasn’t let anyone get close enough to figure out what he wants and give it to him. He’s afraid to pull back the jokes and the swagger that protect the softness beneath. Richie’s looked out for himself for so long that having someone else come in and rearrange all the furniture of his life and climb onto it with him must be overwhelming.

Eddie backs off, sitting on his heels. “Come on, Richie. Get comfortable.”

“Yeah.” Richie ditches his glasses and crawls forward on his hands and knees, kissing Eddie’s shoulder as he passes. “Like this.”

“Yeah?” Eddie’s a little surprised. “You don’t want to do it face to-“

“Listen, old man, I’m sure you can relate to having knees that hate indefinitely sustained angles.”

Eddie chuckles. “Tell me about it.” He smooths a hand down Richie’s flank while he looks around for that bottle of lube. “We should split a tube of Bengay after this,” he muses.

“You’re doing it on purpose again! You’ve literally already got me ass up- what more do you want?!”

“Just _you_.” Eddie grins a kiss into the small of Richie’s back. He goosebumps under his touch and puffs an expectant breath at the click of the bottle cap. Remembering how Richie had made it so good for him, Eddie circles around his rim, getting firmer with each pass until Richie’s pushing back into it, desperate to get him in.

“There we go,” Eddie kisses his back again. He presses deeper, trying to reverse engineer what had just been done to him. Feeling for that spot that would take him apart.

Richie hangs his head limply. “Gffuck, Eddie. _More_.”

He had spent much longer acclimating Eddie to one, but seeing as this was something Richie had more experience with... “All right, all right. Keep your hair on.” Eddie stirs the one finger for a moment before he adds another.

“ _Yeah_ , oh god yeah,” Richie breathes, rocking back to meet him.

Eddie’s pretty sure he’s got the angle now. He moves in and out teasingly slow, wringing needy little _unh unh_ noises out of Richie. “Is this what you wanted, finally?

Richie nods enthusiastically. “I wanted- I- I’ve seen your hands. So elegant. They _move_ like- like-” but in this state, Richie can’t seem to come up with a comparison. He sags for a moment to catch his breath. “I watch them,” he pants. “Sorting silverware out of the dishwasher. Holding your newspaper. Just want you to touch _me_ all the time. Sort me out. Hold me.”

Eddie snakes his free arm around Richie’s middle, holding him as close as he can while he keeps at it. “I’m going to, Richie. Come on,” he coaxes. “You want more? I’ll give you more.”

“Yeah- _unh_ , please.”

Does Richie like to watch him pour their coffee? Then he wants to pour Richie out, too. He works in a third and then runs his hand at Richie’s belly down until he has a grip on his straining cock, pumping him there, as well.

“Right- right there _._ Keep- _ffffuck._ Eddie _.._. Hhnn- _Eddie_.”

“Come on, sweetheart.” He picks up the pace until Richie is too insensible to choke out his name.

With one stroke, Richie crumples from his hands to his elbows, burying his face in the mattress to cry. By the next, he’s painting the sheets beneath him as he comes with a sob.

Eddie’s heart just about stops, realizing _he did that_. 

When a boneless Richie melts into the bed, he curls up behind him and noses at his sweaty hair and kisses his neck. This is all... fairly filthy. But god, is it worth it. Richie, who gave him _so_ much, contented in his arms is _absolutely_ worth some sticky sheets and fingers. Then again, he already knew Richie had a way of making the unsavory special- maybe he shouldn’t be so surprised.

He holds Richie while he recovers, until pins and needles threaten to set in. “You’re on my arm,” he complains.

Richie flops around until he winds up on his back rather than his side, but still trapping Eddie’s arm. “What’d you expect, considering you just stuck it up me like a ventriloquist...”

Eddie wriggles himself free and drops a kiss on Richie’s cheek. “Dummy.”

“That’s a poor reflection on your taste, you know,” Richie smiles up at him. 

“I’ve been told it’s impeccable.”

“By whom, may I ask?”

“Beverly.”

“Oh! Well that’s that then,” Richie agrees deferentially. “I must be a trophy dummy.”

Now that he’s not honed in on only one desire, Eddie tastes his own parched tongue. “I need some water. I’m getting a drink. Wanna see if you can still talk?”

Richie laughs, but before Eddie can get up out of bed, he rolls over the rest of the way and drapes an arm over him, dipping his index finger down between his shoulder blades and along his spine. “Don’t go yet? I wanted to-” 

“I’m coming back, you big softie.” Eddie kisses his forehead. “And then we’re showering and going to my nice clean bed, because you are _not_ cheating me out of a cuddle again.”

-

There’s a little more detail every time Eddie dreams about the tree. For the longest time, he lay beneath it, waiting and watching the clouds pass by. Leaves changed and birds came and went with the change of the seasons, maybe a few dozen times. Lately, there’s a before and after to this.

Before, his friends carry him, all locking hands to form a sling. They button his jacket and comb his hair, just so. A whiskery kiss is laid on his cheek, and then he is laid to rest beneath that tree, in the deep, safe place his friends have dug for him. It’s a blink compared to the waiting and watching.

After, it is night for the last time, but the dark velvet of the heavens is not only above Eddie. He is in the woody, rooty arms of the tree, still, but the soil is no longer the grain and gravel of the earth. The rocks have become stars. He is carried once more, by the locked hands of the tree, his friend, through the silk of the night sky.

He wakes, not actually in Richie’s arms, because he _is_ alive. He moves in the night. Sometimes it’s too hot, or someone’s elbow is in the wrong place to be comfortable for long. And no matter how comfortable, Eddie already slept for thirty years uninterrupted- he's not interested in beating that record. So in the middle of the night, when it's not time to get up yet, in the morning when it almost is, he shuffles a little closer.

Working in the evening like he does, Richie tends to sleep in later than Eddie, so he bides his time with crossword. It’s tough, not having all the background assumed by the editor to answer the clues, but as he fills in the little boxes, he fills in the gaps. _50\. Old AT &T rival- across, three letters. _ Old to whom? When did GTE get gobbled up? Well, now he knows.

“Gimme a hard one,” Richie mumbles, snuggling up to Eddie’s shoulder.

“Which kinda hard do you mean?” Eddie smirks.

With a little growl, Richie presses himself all along his side and grinds his hips at him.

“Matthew McConaughey has-“

“Bongo!” Richie says, without hesitation.

Eddie fills that in, amazed. He’d been scratching his head at that one. “I didn’t even tell you how many letters.”

“There’s literally only one thing about that dude that you must know, and that’s that he got arrested for playing the bongos naked.”

“Is that a euphemism?”

“You’d think!”

Eddie chuckles. “You want to go get breakfast? Or would you rather try to distract me from my puzzle, first?”

“That’s a dumbass question,” says Richie, already muffling his words into Eddie’s cheek.

He fills in one last clue before he's overtaken. _67\. Words before a high note_ \- no need to look that up, that’s a classic. END ON.

**Author's Note:**

> the R+E+E sequel exists now, check it out ;)
> 
> If you enjoy my work, I'm on twitter and tumblr @stitchyarts! come say hi :) if you don't well then this was a weird one, huh? I don't know what came over me either! thanks!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [| ART | Crossword Puzzles](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22156762) by [beaudiddleydandy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beaudiddleydandy/pseuds/beaudiddleydandy)




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